


Beggarman, Thief

by WennyT



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Marvel Cinematic Universe Fusion, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Everything Hurts, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Gen, M/M, Nobody Dies! :D, also inspired (then) by Fly With The Gold Momo!Shim, gratuitous fan wank, lol, old fic but never posted on AO3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 04:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WennyT/pseuds/WennyT
Summary: Changmin squints through his scope and fires once— twice— thrice, in the span of a heartbeat. The enemy sniper aiming for Yunho drops; followed by the two guerrilla scouts he is grappling with.Yunho is situated in his cross hairs, one hand aloft with a thumb upright. Changmin allows himself to smile for a second.As Yunho ducks behind a bulky tree to avoid a spat of enemy fire, Changmin breathes out, adjusting his rifle to sight along the ridge at his one o’clock.A Cap/WS Shim&Jung AU.





	Beggarman, Thief

**Author's Note:**

> These are notes from '15. LOL
> 
> 1\. We’re just going to pretend that DPRK isn’t that shit/fail at invading ROK in this universe.  
2\. We’re also going to pretend that women in the ROK army during the Korean War era weren’t mostly restricted to administrative and support positions.  
3\. What I know of the Korean War is just what I learnt in a year of World History plus some reading on the side. Heads up; I’m just going to twist it to suit my fic and claim artistic licence. Lots of artistic licence. 
> 
> 4\. Some period-typical slurs that are derogatory to Caucasians are used.  
5\. The opinions of some of the characters are not mine. 
> 
> 6\. Yes, we’re going with the Captain and Sergeant of a small tactical task force in this fic. Yes, I’m just making up details because I did research and I can’t find shit on such teams existing in the Korean War but it’s fiction people let’s preteeeend.  
7\. The dates in this fic should line up to RL battle/incidents/skirmishes in the actual Korean War. Yes, I know that the ROKS Dangpo incident happened at the NLL and not the East Sea buttttttt \o/ suspend your disbelief! 
> 
> 8\. ...this was supposed to be a 300 word ficlet to Anon’s question ffs.  
9\. Kudos to you if you can figure out why the title is the title.

## PART ONE

> _Kaesong, 1951_

He leans against the wall, and tries his damnednest not to smile when the door to Major Kwon’s office finally opens. Yunho comes out, takes one look at his face and scowls. “Not a word, Shim.”

“So touchy, Captain,” Changmin widens his eyes, as he turns and falls in step with Yunho. If footsteps can sound angry, they probably will sound like Yunho’s. “Problem?”

“Yeah, my problem is that goddamned smile on your goddamned face,” Yunho growls, as they turn once, twice and into the mess hall. He makes his way over to the food service line up and grabs a tray.

Changmin trails after, spreading his hands apart in a mock show of innocence. “What smile? I’m not smiling. I’m so serious that my face just won’t allow me to crack a smile.”

“Your face is an asshole is what you are.” Yunho mutters, nodding his thanks when the army cook ladles a steaming serving of stew and beans onto a plate.

“That sentence does not make sense at all,” Changmin informs him as they settle in a corner. He nods to the few familiar faces he can spot, and turns his attention back to Yunho, who is poking at the stew with a chipped spoon. “That any good?”

Yunho hands the spoon to him wordlessly. Changmin takes it, and helps himself to a spoon. He chews, and chews.

And chews.

Snorting, Yunho grabs for the spoon and resumes eating. “Quit it with that face. At least it’s better than C-rations.”

Changmin makes a face, and swallows. “That is true. Anyway, what did Kwon want from you?”

The scowl is back on Yunho’s face. Changmin takes pity on him and knocks their knees together, under the table. “That bad? Is it a mission? Behind enemy lines?”

Yunho glares at him. “Why you’re always so excited to tackle those communist bastards, I’ll never know.”

“That’s because I’m good at what I do,” Changmin brags, flashing a jaunty smile even as his stomach sank like a boulder in a well.

“And also because you’re not the one getting into mud and fighting and shit on ground,” Yunho rolls his eyes as he inhales his stew hungrily, taste be damned.

“You say that, but how many times has my trusty M1C baby saved you and the team, huh, Captain?” Changmin glares, and kicks Yunho in the shin.

“Ow,” Yunho says, deadpan. “That hurt. Not. Sergeant Shim, how many times do I have to tell you that your ability to hit moving things far away does not translate to your skill in close-range combat?”

“Yeah?” Changmin swings his legs off of the bench and stands, drawing himself up to his full height. It’s always been a point of contention between them that Yunho is still shorter than Changmin, even after the former received the serum, and Changmin loves to lord it over him. Yunho's easy and fun to wind up. Most of all, Changmin loves it because it's a privilege for him alone. “Finish your lunch, Captain, and we’ll spar outside. Let’s see if my ability to hit things allows me to get in some lucky strikes up close, then.”

“I can see up your nostrils from this angle,” Yunho informs him. “But sure. Your funeral.”

* * *

> _Seoul, 1951_

“It’s dead, shit shit _fuck_,” Kyuhyun, who is responsible for communications in their team (which basically means being the one radioing for medical backup most of the time, because their team is made up of a bunch of reckless self sacrificing idiots lead by an even bigger idiot), scowls and smacks the AN/PRC-6 handy-talkie. “Battery ran out.”

Changmin sucks in a breath and nods, glancing back at the rest of the team, who had taken cover beneath the bombed-out shell of what used to be a bank. “One of us need to scout until we spot friendlies, then. We can’t move as a team with all those injuries. I’m not even sure Youngwoon should be walking.”

“He’s losing too much blood,” Kyuhyun agrees, voice low. “Jinki, too.”

Neither of them mentions Yunho, who is down with two gunshot wounds and a still-bleeding head wound. Even bolstered by the accelerated healing factor from the serum in his veins, it is still dire.

Changmin doesn’t want to think what will happen if they can’t get him to some place with actual medical supplies soon. The team has been taking turns to force their collective pool of field rations down his throat every half an hour, like clockwork, but it’s doing him little good as the twin entry wounds are gaping too much for his body to heal, even with additional fuel.

There are no exit wounds.

“I fucking hate urban warfare,” Changmin mutters, as he slings his M1C over his shoulder and slides his M1911 from its holster. “You can’t have decent sight-lines without climbing onto rooftops and the fucking rooftops are all too fucking bombed out for climbing.”

“Here, take my spare magazine,” Kyuhyun says. He presses it into Changmin’s hand.

Changmin catches his gaze and holds it. “You sure you don’t want it?” The _I may not succeed_ is silent but implied.

Kyuhyun shrugs, false joviality in his voice. “You’re always boasting about how you’re the best damn sniper in this army, Sergeant. Time to put your money where your mouth is.”

Changmin snorts, and nods. He tilts his head in Yunho’s direction, careful not to telegraph his movements. Kyuhyun nods. “I’ll take care of him. Of them.”

“Don’t tell him where I’ve gone if he doesn’t notice; and if he does, distract him,” Changmin says, and goes.

* * *

> _Panmunjom, 1952_

Changmin shifts uncomfortably as Major Kwon gets right up to Yunho’s face and shouts even louder. He won’t believe that such a tiny woman is capable of such noise if someone told him, but he’s witnessing it with his own eyes.

“You are—a _symbol_, Captain,” she hisses like a cobra spitting venom. “Do you know what the Western press is calling you? Captain Korea! How do you think your actions will affect us—”

Changmin hasn’t thought it to be possible, but Yunho’s face gets even more impassive as he interrupts her, a sure sign of his temper. “With all due respect, ma’am, my team matters more to me than the opinion of some round-eyed scribbler in—”

“The Americans are backing us. We cannot afford to lose their support,” she makes an abortive gesture to cut off Yunho’s retort, “I know too well what you think of that, Jeong,” she says wryly. “You’ve made it clear to me plenty of times. But the truth is that we were on the brink of defeat mere months into the conflict. We had little over twenty-thousand men before they stepped in.”

“The UN did,” Yunho muttered rebelliously.

“The UN, the US,” she waves a hand, dismissive. Yunho stiffens, but remains silent.

“All one and the same most of the time. My point is,” she levels another glare at him, “we can’t win this without them. You think it doesn’t gall me to admit it? It does. But it is _also_ the truth. The support of the US military is linked with the support of the American public. And they are already calling for their military to withdraw their troops. We _cannot_ afford that. So I need you to mind your actions, and _follow your orders_. Do you understand?”

“But, ma’am,” Yunho begins, but Major Kwon is louder, her voice riding over his. “Do. You. Understand?”

“Understood, Major,” Yunho recites, voice colder than a Seoul winter.

“Noted.” Major Kwon heaves a sigh, looking older than her thirty-something years. “Dismissed.”

Yunho snaps a sharply crisp salute and turns to leave, opening the office’s door with studied care. He steps out, every inch of him rigid with suppressed anger.

Major Kwon flicks her eyes towards the corner Changmin is skulking in. “You too, Sergeant. Get the hell out of my sight.”

“Ma’am,” Changmin murmurs, offering her a salute of his own.

* * *

> _Triangle Hill, 1952_

Changmin squints through his scope and fires once— twice— thrice, in the span of a heartbeat. The enemy sniper aiming for Yunho drops; followed by the two guerrilla scouts he is grappling with.

Yunho is situated in his cross hairs, one hand aloft with a thumb upright. Changmin allows himself to smile for a second.

As Yunho ducks behind a bulky tree to avoid a spat of enemy fire, Changmin breathes out, adjusting his rifle to sight along the ridge at his one o’clock. Time to get back to work.

* * *

> _Yeoncheon, 1953_

“Has anyone seen Changmin?” Yunho shouts, striding into the chaos that is UN headquarters. “Has anyone seen Staff Sergeant Shim?”

He scans around frantically for a familiar face, and finds one to his relief. It’s one of his men, Taemin.

He never should have agreed to aid the 7th Division in their counterattack. He never should have allowed himself to be separated from his men.

“Where is he?” He demands, stepping up to Taemin, who is in the midst of being patched up by a medic. “Cho says all our men are accounted for, except for him. Where is he?”

“Captain…” Taemin looks up, and Yunho is struck by how his eyes are too old for his face. “Captain— _hyung_…”

“No,” Yunho says, because it is impossible. “No.”

“I’m sorry, _hyung_.” Taemin bows his head, but his next words are still audible. Yunho wishes they aren’t.

“Staff Sergeant Shim Changmin is MIA, presumed KIA.” 

* * *

* * *

## PART TWO 

> _Gyeonggi, 1953_

Shim Changmin is found by North Korean agents, half-dead beneath a treacherous landslide of rubble caused by artillery fire from both sides.

* * *

> _East Sea, 1967_

The ROKS _Dangpo_ goes down with more than a third of her sailors. Also on board is Major Jeong Yunho, more commonly known as Captain Korea in the media. Several bodies, including his, go missing, and are presumed dead. 

* * *

> _Chongjin, 1968_

Shim Changmin is erased. Following the failed Blue House raid, the asset is made in the city of iron.

* * *

> _Huksan Island, 1969_

The asset is deployed. He has fifteen targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Korean DMZ, 1976_

The asset is deployed. He has two targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Chungcheongnam, 1978_

The asset is deployed. He has four targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Off the coast of Gyeongsangnam, 1980_

The asset is deployed. He has five targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Cheorwon, 1992_

The asset is deployed. He has three targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Off the coast of Jeongdongjin, 1996_

The asset is deployed. He has eleven targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Sokcho Naval Base, 1998_

The asset is deployed. He has nine targets. He eliminates all with extreme prejudice.

* * *

> _Pyongyang, 2001_

“It is unstable. Put it on ice.”

“Do we wipe it, Bright Sun of the Twenty-First Century?”

“…. Don’t bother. I don’t see us utilising it again in the future.”

“Yes, Great Sun of The Nation.”

* * *

> _Sea of Okhotsk, 2012_

The body of Major Jeong Yunho is recovered near Cape Yuzhnyy, frozen in a large floe of sea ice, in a happy coincidence during widespread search-and-rescue efforts conducted in wake of the Kolskaya incident.

It is presumed that his body was driven from where the ROKS Dangpo sank, by strong ocean currents, to the freezing waters of Okhotsk.

To the astonishment of medical crew on board the icebreaker that made the discovery, a heartbeat of 17 bpm and low-level brain activity are detected.

* * *

> _Panmunjom etc., 2013_

Lieutenant Colonel Jeong Yunho is ostensibly healed with no damage from his time in the ice, following his many appearances as part of the South Korean delegation for negotiation talks held to diffuse the increased tension between the two Koreas.

* * *

> _North of Byeongpung Island, 2014_

Colonel Jeong Yunho participates in rescue operations following the sinking of the ferry Sewol.

* * *

> _Seoul, 2015_

He fights the masked man, gritting his teeth as the other’s arm winds around his neck in a chokehold. Whoever this man is, he is very fast and very strong, and the arm currently crushing his trachea feels too solid to be made of human flesh.

They turn, and twist, a grappling dance of violence marked with knives and guns and punches. Yunho forces himself to fight dirty, to fight the way Ch- the way he was taught in his youth, to make his own chances in a fight when no chances are given to him.

The masked man has Yunho’s arms trapped, but he manages to pull a foot free from the other’s thighs and kick up, and out.

The impact of his foot against the masked man’s face knocks the other’s head back, and the full-front mask-and-goggles contraption on his face cracks, and Yunho darts forward, intent on using it as leverage.

But the masked man shakes it away with a snarl, and grabs at Yunho’s hand and twists, and by the time Yunho manages to free himself again to turn around to face his opponent, the mask is on the ground, and Yunho’s nightmare is in front of him.

“Changmin?” Yunho can’t move. He thinks he’s drowning again. There's ice in his lungs.

The masked man- _Changmin_ sneers, and it is an expression alien on a face that is more familiar to Yunho than his own, uttering “who the hell is Changmin?” in the harsher accents of the Northern dialect.

The ice is around Yunho. It’s in Yunho. He takes a step forward, a hand outstretched. He doesn’t know what to do. There’s only one thing he can do. “How… Where…”

Vaguely, he hears the patter of footsteps behind him, and knows it is the KNP SWAT coming, to back him up. But Yunho can’t— he can’t—

The man wearing Changmin’s face notices the impending company, too. His face goes blank, the fury it held a mere second ago gone, and he backs up, lithe and more graceful than Changmin ever was, in all of their sparring sessions, and ducks behind an overturned van.

Yunho gives a shout and sprints forward, and around.

But there’s no one there.

* * *

> _Busan, 2016_

There is a file.

There is a file with everything they did to his best friend, on it.

There is a file sitting untouched in Yunho’s safe, given to him by an agent.

There is a file which came at the cost of two informants’ deaths.

There is a file that Yunho should read, because it contains critical information.

There is a file that Yunho cannot touch; it is testimony of his guilt, it is proof that he didn’t do enough, and it is confirmation that he is a failure.

Because he couldn’t find Changmin, and he didn’t search adequately, and he damned the best man he has ever known to hell.

* * *

> _Gwangju, 2019_

Yunho wakes up in the middle of the night, a knife at his throat and a heavy weight on his chest.

He looks up, a yell caught at the back of his throat, and stills. The eyes staring down at him glitter like a wild animal's, and the face is gaunt. The hair is long, and stuffed under a baseball cap.

But it’s still a face more dear to him than his own.

The ice in his chest shifts. Thaws.

“I know you,” his personal ghost says; voice a rusty rasp against the dark of the night. “Don’t I?”

“Yes,” Yunho manages. Words crowd in his mouth, stillborn and stubborn_. I’ve known you. You know me. We’ve known each other since we were children. You were—are the best part of me. You’ve always been at my side. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I failed to save you. Ever since you died, I’ve always felt that a part of me is missing. But you didn’t die, did you? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

Instead he breathes in. And out. “Yes, you did.”

The weight on his chest shifts, and settles. It feels solid, grounded, un-ghost-like. Then: “He loved you, you know.”

“Who?” Yunho blurts, attention more on how skinny Changmin is, than his words.

“Shim Changmin,” the man wearing Changmin’s face says. There’s a slight curl to his lip that Yunho realises is a smile—or a facsimile of one. “He loved you.”

“You’re Changmin,” Yunho says, desperately, clenching his hands to prevent himself from clutching at Changmin, “what are you talking about, _you_ are Changmin.”

He doesn’t let himself think about the other part of the sentence. He _can’t_. The ice is creeping back in.

“No,” not-Changmin says, gently, almost inaudibly. “I’m not. I’m just what they stuffed into his corpse.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a million years ago but never posted it on AO3.  
Happy All Hallows Eve!


End file.
